Dictionary of Literary Biography on Robert (White) Creeley

"None of the so-called Black Mountain Writers wrote in a literally similar manner. That is, Olson's modes of statement are certainly not mine, nor are they Duncan's, nor Denise Levertov's--and so on. What was, then, the basis for our company? I think, simply the insistent feeling we were given something to write, that it was an obedience we were undertaking to an actual possibility of revelation." Creeley's statement in an interview stresses the openness of the very "school" he helped found and promote. At the same time, its main tenor recalls similar statements by the Beat poets such as, say, Ginsberg's account of the genesis of Howl: "I suddenly turned aside in San Francisco," Ginsberg recalls, "... to follow my romantic inspiration--Hebraic-Melvillian bardic breath. I thought I wouldn't write a poem, but just write what I wanted to without fear, let my imagination go, open secrecy, and scribble magic...